7.1 The Skill

Have each person bring four sentimental objects to the meeting. They can include: music, a piece of clothing, an object, food, a photograph or a gift your partner gave you in the past. The whole evening is spent with people telling the story behind what they have brought and passing them around. If they brought music, play it. If they brought food, eat it. This is a fun way to tap into your memories and good feelings.




7.3 The Story

Music is a great secret weapon.

 

It is secret when you walk around with earplugs, and no one else knows what you are listening to. 

 

Music influences how you feel in a taproot kind of way. When my mother attended her 60th high school reunion, she and most of the other people there had trouble navigating the stairs, remembering each other's names and carrying on a conversation about something besides orthopedics. But when the melodies came on.... everyone knew the words. They smiled without trying and fell back to the age when those songs first took up residence in their hearts two thirds of a century ago.

 

A friend went to a conference on special needs children, and told me about a young woman who was wheelchair bound. Two people rolled her on to the stage, and he felt a pang of compassion for her misshapen body, until the piano player started and she broke into beautiful singing.  There was no room for pity now. She was mesmerizing.

 

A couple of decades ago my preschoolers figured out that if I was doing a lot of barking, sneaking to the cd player and putting on Judy Collins made it easier to be in the same house with me. 

 

You have songs in your history. Maybe it is a tune you liked to hum together when you were dating, or the number you used for your first dance. A fistful of words is all it takes to open the bank vault of feelings...Somewhere Over the Rainbow...You've Got a Friend... Here, There and Everywhere...Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water... Edelweiss... Leaving on a Jetplane...The Wells Fargo Wagon... Silver Bells... You Are My Sunshine...

 

You have music at your fingertips. Play it, not just to celebrate when you are already feelin' groovy, but to pump those emotions back to the surface.

 

But toss the second set of earplugs, and share. It keeps you on the same couch.



7.5 Prayer

Oh Lord,
Thank you for the gift of music. It is a window into our hearts and it is a miracle to be able to tuck those wonderful feelings away and take them out again, many times over the years. Thank you for giving those feelings to us, over and over again.
Amen.